


Colpo Di Fulmine

by anonymous_John_H_Watson



Category: In the Heights - Miranda/Hudes
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, F/M, I'm Sorry Lin-Manuel Miranda, Love Triangles, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26070949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_John_H_Watson/pseuds/anonymous_John_H_Watson
Summary: Colpo di fulmine: when love strikes someone like lightning, so powerful and intense, it can't be denied. It's beautiful and messy, cracking a chest open and spilling their soul out for the world to seeIt finally made sense to me
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Usnavi/Original Female Character(s)





	Colpo Di Fulmine

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically my fantasy

My parents led the way. My father turned to look at me with a suppressed sullen sort of sadness in his eyes; it was the look of a father after he had escorted his daughter to her husband. I imagined he felt he had lost me. I elbowed him and raised my eyebrows, it was our way of asking each other what was wrong. He uncharacteristically shrugged, keeping his thoughts to himself. My father and I had our own way of talking. We could hold entire conversations by simply exchanging glances, silence was our shared language but in that moment, I felt like a tourist in a foreign land. 

My mother was different. When encountered with a challenge, she would opt for the fight response. My mother loved me. Though she was younger than my father, she to me seemed like a woman with the life experience of a Buddha. She had lost the man she loved, her father, at thirty five and it was then that she realised how much family meant. Her brother was trapped in a crisis of family feuds and forged wills of his own making. She leaned on us as she took the heat from him. She had seen hundreds of marriages break apart but seen two work out: her parents and her own. It was a rite of passage, marriage, one she wanted me to take.

I wanted it too. I liked the idea. I had a fairly steady career now, an undergraduate in literature from an Ivy league and masters in Law. I was ready. Plus, I wanted a baby and I hadn't exactly perfected the whole getting sperm from my biologically female body yet. 

And so, there we were. Some had asked for my parents' eldest daughter's hand in marriage but we never took them seriously. Either because we didn't want to join the family, or because the boy didn't seem good enough for my parents' daughter or the fact that everyone wanted to marry Khalid and Anums' daughter and not me, Fatima. There was a difference between wanting to marry me and wanting to marry their daughter.

Maybe we were asking for too much, maybe I was asking for too much. Was I? All I wanted was someone who could be a good father to my children and friend to me. My parents wanted more. I think they overestimated how good of a match I was. Perhaps it was for the best because eventually, we found a family that was practically perfect in every way. Rich but not too greedy, well-educated but not too intellectual, liberal but not too eccentric, religious but not too conservative, respected but not too arrogant. They seemed to tick every box. They had two sons and a daughter and the eldest was one of the most eligible bachelors in the city. He had seen me at my best friend's wedding and wanted me. He told his mother who was ecstatic; this was the first time her son had shown interest in marriage. 

Perhaps the real reason we agreed to take things a step further was that my father and his were childhood friends. They jumped at the opportunity of becoming family. Apparently, I had met his sons when I was younger. But I didn't quite remember. The family had moved to the US a long time ago and my father was the only one who maintained contact in the form of an annual phone call on their birthday which they shared. They were moving back to our nation now and my parents could not have been more excited.

Two weeks later, my parents led the way to their door.  
"Say Salam," my mother reminded me.  
"I know," I said, instinctively.  
And then I smiled at her, trying to reassure her. Before she could smile back, the door opened. It was their butler. We said our greetings and stepped inside. 

There was a boy there. 

I feel I'll never be able to describe how I felt, not really. But I'll try anyway.

Colpo di fulmine. The lightning bolt, as they say in Sicily. It finally made sense to me.

It was odd, to say the least. I felt I understood Adam's desire for the forbidden fruit or Juliet's senseless stubbornness to die in Romeo's arms. I felt everything I had read or seen or experienced was now null and void because I would never experience it the same way again. Apples would no longer crunch the same way when I bit into them, melted chocolate would no longer coat the roof of my mouth, my brother's mashed potatoes would no longer smell of oregano and remind me of Italy. Nothing would ever be the same again. How could it be? He had challenged my world view by simply existing. I didn't know that was possible. I didn't know he was possible.

There was just something about him. He wasn't very tall, 5 ft 9 inches at best. His hair was short, cut far too close to his scalp. From where I stood, it looked less like hair and more like black marker scribbled on a bald head. His hairline did him no favours either, it was pushed too far back and made his forehead look huge. His skin was dark, the colour of almonds and though he was clearly young, one could see the birth of wrinkles in the ends of eyes. He smiled with his eyes, I thought, too often maybe. His eyebrows were darker than ink and very thick, they moved with his expressions making each seem intense and sincere. Below them, lied dark eyes that seemed endless. I felt I could swim in them and never reach the bottom, it was too vast of an ocean to be explored completely and in hindsight, maybe that's why I was so drawn to them. Schrodinger's cat.

He walked under the skylight and sunlight fell on his face in threads, illuminating his swarthy skin and dark eyes that seemed to change altogether.They now looked like a church's stained glass or the colour of rum when ice had diluted the worse parts of it. But what really stood out was his smile. If there ever was an embodiment of purity and happiness and optimism and hope and all that was good in the world, it was his smile. His eyebrows rose, eyes wrinkled and the ends of his lips stooped down rather than up and yet it seemed like the warmest smile that I immediately reciprocated without thinking. He wasn't even smiling at me.

"It doesn't matter how many classes you graduate, you'll still look like a kid in my suit," A deep voice said, chuckling.

The boy was wearing an oversized blazer that fell just above his knees. He looked like a seven year old in his father's clothes. I smiled again, adoring him. 

My mother pulled me out of my trance, clearing her throat.

"Salam," the deep voice was back and it took me a moment to locate its source. Tall, dark and sporting a porn-stache, the deep voice welcomed my parents. He looked a lot older then the boy.

The boy followed, clearly embarrassed and very nervous, he chuckled and reached out to me with both hands. He took mine in his and said,  
"I promise I'm 26 and not always dressed like this."

I laughed with him. He embraced my parents with none of the formality of the older man. You would think he had known my parents for years. He looked at me again and we both burst out in laughter. For some reason, we couldn't stop. All the lessons my mother had drilled into my head about respect and being gentle, "soft spoken" were forgotten and I was practically in tears but he was no better. 

The older man glared at him,  
"Hey," he threatened.  
"Sorry, sorry," he said quickly and turned back to meet his gaze. They exchanged a glance that was lost in translation. He stared at me and I at him, like two immature cousins we tried to muffle our laughter but failed and started snorting like drunk pigs. 

"Sorry, Uncle." I apologized, sincerely with a smile.  
"Oh, no. I'm not-" he began, taken aback.  
"Uncle?" The cute boy said, fighting tears, "That's my brother, future sis."

oh.

OH.

"I'm Usnavi, that's Hussain, the guy your here to see." He added.

I glanced at Usnavi and then the older man. They were brothers. I assumed he was a distant uncle or something but they were most definitely bound by blood. But he seemed to have none of his brother's nervous glances or charming smile. How odd to see those familiar features devoid of warmth, of Usnavi, like they were stolen.

So this was the man I was to marry.

I thought I would get to marry Usnavi.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm open to criticism so, drop a comment if you like!
> 
> Also, this may or may not turn smutty eventually


End file.
